What Are the Different Types of Staff Accountant Jobs?

Working paper is also called "working paper". Refers to analysis and informal reports prepared by accountants and managers when collating estimates and preparing formal reports and financial statements. Working papers have a variety of uses, and their format and content vary depending on the use. ^[1]

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Working paper is also called "working paper". Refers to analysis and informal reports prepared by accountants and managers when collating estimates and preparing formal reports and financial statements. Working papers have a variety of uses, and their format and content vary depending on the use. ^[1]

There are many kinds of working papers because the audit working papers have written records of various information collected by the auditors. They are:

Audit management work papers;

The working papers in the audit work are a general term for the various materials prepared and obtained by the CPA and his assistants during the entire audit work (including verification, capital verification, appraisal, asset evaluation, consulting, etc.). It is formed and issued by CPA

Audit working papers mainly assist auditors in the following ways:

Provide methods for allocating and coordinating audit work;

Help senior staff, managers and partners to supervise and

Most of the confidential information obtained by the auditors is recorded in the working papers. Therefore, the working papers are confidential. due to

Article 15 of the "Basic Standards for Independent Auditing of Chinese Certified Public Accountants" clearly stipulates: "CPAs shall record the audit plan and its implementation process, results, and other important matters that need to be judged, in the audit work paper." "Independent Audit Specific Standards No. 6-Audit Working Drafts" specifically specifies the requirements for drafting the draft, which are: complete content, standardized format, consistent identification, clear records, clear conclusions, and 10 elements of the draft.

Auditing by certified public accountants is inseparable from working papers. However, in the current independent audit practice, there are many deficiencies in terms of design, compilation and filing, which seriously affect the quality.

I. Defects in the design of the manuscript

According to international practice, the draft is generally designed by each accounting firm, as long as it meets the specifications of independent auditing standards. In order to make the accounting firm comply with the requirements of the Code when designing the draft. The Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants issued the "Guidelines for the Practice of Chinese Certified Public Accountants No. 2-Audit Work Draft" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines for Audit Work"), which specifies the basic content of the manuscript, the basic requirements, the relationship between the manuscripts, The contents of review, classification, sorting, archiving and storage are provided for reference by each accounting firm when designing. In addition, a number of exemplary formats and compilation instructions are listed. But in fact, many accounting firms do not or do not design the manuscript in accordance with the requirements of the Guidelines and Guidelines due to cost-effectiveness considerations. For example: The Sampling Report on the Quality of Accounting Information (No. 3) issued by the Ministry of Finance on December 22, 1999 found that 28 of the 100 state-owned enterprises were randomly selected (Note 1). The organization is messy, the format and logo are inconsistent, and the relationship between the audits is unclear. As a result, the audit conclusions are biased, the audit reports are not true, and some companies major accounting information has not been fully revealed. Some of them are incomplete and important. The clauses are omitted. The problem is serious. According to the author's observations, the first is the incompleteness of the design of the manuscript. The "Guide" and the requirements of auditing practices, the auditing manuscript should be subject to compliance testing, cut-off testing, and analytical testing. And substantive test papers, trial balances, audit difference adjustment tables, etc., but most accounting firms only pay attention to the relatively complete substantive test papers, even if there are compliance, analytical, cut-off test papers are very simple, Does not fully meet the requirements of the norms. Second, the content is not complete. International Auditing Standard 9-Records stipulates "Working papers should be sufficiently complete and detailed, the auditors with experience in the audit to obtain a comprehensive understanding. "China's audit work draft guidelines also stipulate that each draft should have: the name of the entity being audited, the name of the audit project, the time or period of the audit project, the audit process record, the audit logo and its description, the audit conclusion, index number and page number, Compiler's name and preparation date, reviewer's name and review date, other items that should be explained, etc. However, these 10 inconsistent manuscripts are often seen, and some manuscripts even lack the audit process, and the audit conclusion records items The third is not systemic. The audit working paper shall consist of an audit procedure table, a review table (lead table) summary table, a detailed table, a test table, a spot check (disc) table, an analysis table, an audit calculation table, a letter of confirmation, etc. to form a It is a complete system that is mutually restrictive and mutually intertwined. However, from actual contact, some manuscripts are designed with chaotic logic, inappropriate titles, and lack of clear correspondence between the manuscripts.

Defects in drafting manuscripts

Completely and comprehensively audit the audit plan, including the division of responsibilities between the CPA and his assistants. The professional judgment of the CPA is recorded in the audit work paper. It is the responsibility that the CPA and his assistants must abide by. Therefore, when preparing the manuscript, first of all, the content must be informative: that is, the obtained information is true and reliable, the content is complete, and the source is indicated; the key point is highlighted: the matters that have a significant impact on the reflection of the audit conclusions should be explained in detail, which is simple and appropriate : "The scope of the record is an important matter of the profession, because it is unnecessary and impractical for the auditor to record every observation, consideration or conclusion made in his working paper" (Note 2), so general questions A brief record can be made, and important issues must be recorded in detail; the conclusion is clear; the certified public accountant is required to express professional judgment on the audit project, which must not be ambiguous, ambiguous, and cannot express his opinion. Secondly, the form must be complete: complete the 10 items described above; format specification: the manuscripts used in an office should be consistent; clear records: the content must be logical, the text must be correct, and the data Be right. However, the current reality is that in order to catch up with tasks and improve efficiency, the registered members often hurriedly and hurriedly prepared the manuscript. To sum up, the common defects in the preparation of the manuscript are:

1. The executed programs are not recorded in the program table, and the reasons for the unexecuted programs are not explained.

2. There is no comprehensive check between the manuscript and the manuscript, and the verified figures are not marked;

3. The verification number is not filled in or incomplete. The detailed number of the same manuscript does not add up with the total number, and the hook relationship between different manuscripts does not match.

4. A few manuscripts missed the audit process and audit conclusions, or the focus of the records was not prominent, and professional judgment was vague;

5. The spot check list does not indicate the scope and proportion of the spot check;

6. The reviewer, the compiler missed the signature and could not see whether it had been reviewed;

7, scribbled, altered, and some even difficult to distinguish the content of the text;

8. The copy materials attached to the manuscript are of inferior quality and obscure rules and regulations, and some faxes are not copied;

9. The amount of unadjusted non-conformities is omitted and summarized, which makes the amount controlled by the materiality principle false and increases the audit risk;

10. No detailed check with audited accounting statements;

11. The audit plan and audit summary are simple to write and deal with. Many audit plans are supplemented after the audit, and they do not provide planning and guidance at all.

12. Failing to make proper evaluation and explanation of exceptions and abnormal phenomena, such as serious inconsistencies in correspondence and unfair transaction prices of related parties;

13. The materials provided by the customer management authority do not meet the required form of the manuscript;

14. Logos are rarely used.

In addition, many problems can be listed.

3. Defects in manuscript filing.

The manuscripts can be divided into two categories: "broad and narrow sense". The broadly defined audit work manuscript refers to the form of the whole process from the start of the contracted business to the end of the audit work and the information and records obtained. In other words, in addition to the formal audit report, the records formed during the audit and the information obtained are in the scope of the draft. The narrow audit work paper refers only to the records prepared during the audit. Regardless of the international auditing standards or the provisions of China's auditing standards, they refer to broadly defined manuscripts. It can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the manuscript formed by issuing audit opinions for planning, controlling and summarizing the entire audit work, such as business engagement letters, relevant information about the client's legal structure and organizational structure, audit plans and summary, Unaudited and audited accounting statements, various discrepancies, audit reports and drafts of management and construction documents, as well as audited client statements, statements, etc .; the second type is the drafts formed for the implementation of audit procedures, the scope of which is equivalent to the narrow sense Manuscripts, such as various test forms, procedural forms, verification forms, summary forms, detail forms, spot checks, analysis forms, inquiry letters, etc .; three types are reference manuscripts for reference, such as client's business license, joint venture agreement, and approval documents , Articles of association, minutes of board meetings, important economic contracts, agreements, capital verification reports, correspondence letters or conversation records with internal auditors, lawyers, former certified public accountants, experts and other third parties, internal control spending, accounting systems, etc.

It can be seen that the scope of the broad manuscript is very large. The current status is: one should not collect, and the files of a few projects do not even have business agreements and customer statements, let alone board records, important economic contracts and the like. It seems that this information has nothing to do with the audit. It is true that auditors should not prepare working papers that have nothing to do with the audit objectives. If it is unavoidable, they should not be retained after the audit. Second, the archives are not well sorted and uniformly coded. The manuscript is the property of the certified public accountant. According to the auditing standards, it should be kept and kept confidential by the accounting firm. When archiving, the permanent file should be distinguished from the current effective file and bound into a book to facilitate the next audit. However, a few firms confuse the permanent files with the current files, do not add a rough list of the files, and do not uniformly encode and make it difficult to consult. The importance of audit files is well known, (1) it can be consulted for the next audit; (2) it can be used to check the audit quality by the financial, tax, auditing agencies and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants; (3) in the event of an audit dispute or Pleadings serve as the basis for distinguishing auditing responsibilities from accounting responsibilities. The author has encountered a case in which a company limited by shares found to have paid "management fees" to its investors during the audit. According to the provisions of the tax law, approval should be obtained. The company refused to accept our opinion on the ground that it did not see this provision, and provided relevant documents to it before agreeing to complete the formalities. In view of the time limit, the amount added is not large, and it is not disclosed in the audit report, only recorded in the manuscript. A few months later, the audit by the tax authority found that not only the income tax bureau was repaid, but also a fine of tens of thousands of yuan. The client's board of directors considered that the certified public accountant was responsible for this, and we were relieved when we presented the original records.

Recommendations for archival filing

While emphasizing the importance of the manuscript, we must prevent another tendency: the audit of the CPA is to prepare the manuscript. After the manuscript is compiled, the audit is over. Therefore, we are rushing to compile the manuscript instead of earnestly implementing the audit procedures. Collect audit evidence. As a result, the audit quality has been severely reduced and the audit risk has been increased. The current distortion of accounting information has become a social nuisance, which is closely related to the low quality of the audit.

To eliminate the gaps in the design and preparation of the manuscript, the following measures are recommended:

1. Except for the drafts designed by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants above the provincial level, the firms should submit their drafts to the provincial Note Association for the record. If the provincial "note association" believes that the design of the draft does not meet the auditing standards and guidelines, the firm should be required to improve;

2. Each accounting firm shall draw up the drafting rules for the preparation of the manuscript, detailing the preparation purpose, procedures, method of writing tools (such as pens, ball pens), review, classification, sorting, coding, filing and other requirements, and implement them in a practical manner. .

3. Every newly engaged auditing staff should be trained to prepare the draft before taking up his post, as a necessary condition for knowing and meeting.

4. In the CPA qualification exam, increase the number of questions in the paper.

The manuscript is very important in the whole auditing work. Without the manuscript, there is no audit record, and the audit cannot be started.